How to Love God With All of You
By Rick Warren
“You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” Mark 12:30 (NLT)
One way to look at today’s verse is to focus on loving God with all your talk, all your feelings, all your thinking, and all your behavior. God shaped you to be primarily a talker, a feeler, a thinker, or a doer.
In Mark 12:30, the Bible says, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (NLT).
Talkers love God with their hearts. Feelers love God with their souls. Doers love God with their strength—their bodies.
Did you know you can also love God with your intellect? Thinkers love God with their minds. When you’re developing and strengthening your mind, it is an act of worship.
Thinkers love Bible study. Psalm 119:97 says, “How I love your instruction! It is my meditation all day long” (CSB).
People who are thinkers fall in love with the Bible when they become believers. There is no other book in the world like it! It has the answers to life’s questions, including: Why am I here? Where am I going? What is the purpose of life? Does my life matter? What’s the past? What’s the future? Where did I come from?
We need thinkers because the world needs consideration. Somebody has to be thinking through complex issues and the implications of what the rest of us are doing. We need people who think through tough problems and then bring solutions to the table. That’s why we need scientists, writers, philosophers, and innovators.
But thinkers have to be careful to practice humility. The Bible says, “Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom” (Proverbs 3:7 NLT). Why? Because God is God, and you are not.
Humility is a choice. Not once in the Bible are you told to pray for God to humble you. Instead, you’re told to “humble yourself before the Lord” (James 4:10 ICB). It’s a choice. Humility is something you do to yourself. Nobody else can do it to you. Other people can humiliate you, but they can’t make you humble. In essence, humility is total dependence on God. It’s not denying your strengths; instead, it’s being honest about your weaknesses.
Thinkers also need to be careful to practice what they know. If you know it, then do it! James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (NIV).
Whether God has made you to be a talker, a feeler, a thinker, or a doer, you can rely on his Word as your manual for life. He created you, and he knows the best way for you to live. That’s why he wants you to do things his way! You can trust him!
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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